Rather than ending up in a landfill, they can be fed to cattle, reducing the loss for the commodity producer, reducing the production cost for the cattle producer, and reducing the environmental impact of placing the waste in the landfill. Actually, many by-products make great cattle feed. By-products are the left over components after the main product is extracted. For example, when sugar is made from sugar beets, an energy-dense, fibrous pulp is left over.
When ethanol is made from corn, a product high in digestible fiber and protein is left over called distillers grains. The process that produces corn oil and corn starch produces wet corn gluten feed, which is a by-product high in fiber and protein as well. These by-products are excellent cattle feed, as their nutrients are very concentrated and they can usually be included in the diet very economically creating a win for the producers of the primary product, the cattle producer, and the environment.
Would you like a bowl of grass or a juicy steak for supper? There are millions of acres of forage and range in the United States that cannot be converted to crop ground to raise things like wheat or corn because the soil is not fertile enough and too easily erodible.
Therefore, those acres can only produce grass, which people cannot digest. If the diet is too low in starch, rumen development and growth are slowed. Calves are babies. As calf caretakers, we sometimes overlook that calves are babies.
They are, in fact, more like a human baby or piglet than their dam. Feeding high-starch starter and grower feeds supports the most daily gain. Several studies dating back to the s have demonstrated this very clearly. However, sometimes there are studies that suggest that calves gain body weight with diets containing fiber. These studies can be confusing to scientists, feed industry personnel, and calf feeders.
Let's dig into the data over the years to get clarity. Researchers at Virginia Tech in the s fed diets with various concentrations of nutrients and reported that fiber can impact "real" body weight gain drastically.
Let's define the terms. Total body weight is measured by simply weighing a calf. This total weight consists of empty body weight and gut fill. Gut fill is the water and feed residue in the digestive tract. Total weight misleading. In the Virginia Tech research, at a common protein intake, gut fill became greater, and empty body weight gain became less as acid detergent fiber ADF was raised in the diet.
To help visualize this in and pound body weight calves, the amount of gut fill is plotted in the figure relative to the concentration of ADF in the diet. Note the dramatic rises in gut fill as dietary ADF went up. So simply weighing a calf may not tell the real story. When diets of different fiber concentrations and types are compared, researchers must attempt to correct for gut fill to determine the "real" weight and weight gain of the calves. The table shows the total body weights, gut fill, and empty body weights of calves fed diets with different amounts and types of fiber.
In Trial 1, 60 percent corn high starch, low fiber or 60 percent soybean hull low starch, high fiber pelleted diets were fed to calves less than 2 months old. Dairy cows are great recyclers!
They can turn inedible by-products from human food and fiber industries like citrus pulp, cottonseed and brewers grain into wholesome nutritious milk! Your email address will not be published. What Do Cows Eat? Comments Thanks!
0コメント